Resources

Date Filed

May 20, 2015

State employees at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as “Angola,” routinely and systemically failed to properly assess, diagnose and treat the medical problems of people who are incarcerated at the largest prison in the state, which for years has had the world’s highest rate of...

The SPLC submitted hundreds of pages of expert reports to a federal court as part of a motion to certify a lawsuit against the East Mississippi Correctional Facility as a class action. The reports expose shocking human rights violations at the for-profit prison for the mentally ill, including conditions described as “torture” by a forensic psychiatrist.

Almost two weeks after Michael Brown died in the street after being shot by a police officer a half-dozen times, this nation hasn’t taken the steps necessary to understand the root causes of the rage in Ferguson. And, as a nation, we must understand it.

Date Filed

June 16, 2014

The Alabama Department of Corrections systemically put the health and lives of prisoners at risk by ignoring their medical and mental health needs and discriminating against prisoners with disabilities – violations of federal law by a prison system that has one of the highest mortality rates in the country. The SPLC and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program filed suit to end the deplorable conditions in Alabama prisons.

An investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP) has found that for many people incarcerated in Alabama’s state prisons, a sentence is more than a loss of freedom. Prisoners, including those with disabilities and serious physical and mental illnesses, are condemned to penitentiaries where systemic indifference, discrimination and dangerous – even life-threatening – conditions are the norm.

Date Filed

May 29, 2013

Prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian endured filthy and dangerous conditions at the for-profit prison, which operated “in a perpetual state of crisis” where prisoners were at “grave risk of death and loss of limbs,” even resorting to setting fires to receive medical attention. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the prisoners that described how prison officials had known of these conditions for years but failed to protect prisoners.

Date Filed

February 06, 2013

When Alabama legislators revised the state’s anti-immigrant law in 2012, they passed a law requiring the state to maintain an online list of immigrants who are detained by law enforcement, who appear in court for any violation of state law, and who unable to prove they are not “unlawfully present aliens.” It provided no means for people to be removed from this “black list” if the listing is an error or if their immigration status changes. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a federal lawsuit to stop this state-sanctioned “blacklisting” of immigrants, which could encourage harassment and violence.

The SPLC has reached an agreement with officials in Orleans Parish, La., to address the brutal and inhumane conditions at the Orleans Parish Prison, where prisoners have endured rampant violence, sexual assaults and neglect.